Let's Play Pretend
by S. A. Arkenburgh
Summary: What could've happened between Stefan and Elena the night she staked him in the gut. ONE SHOT
1. Original Elena's POV

"I've had a long day, and I just want to go home," I said to Alaric, who was talking about training the next day.

"Alright," Alaric replied.

I drove home without a worry in my mind. Damon would lock Stefan up for the night after my little staking escapade, and all I had to do now was stay safe and at home.

By the time I got home, it was a bit past two in the morning and I could almost _hear_ my bed calling my name. I was definitely sleep deprived.

"Elena…" I heard my bed call.

_Wait…_

Something was definitely wrong. Beds don't talk, and I _clearly_ heard something call my name…

Or rather, some _one_.

I turned around to make a run for my front door, but was quickly stopped cold when my wrist was grabbed and I was pulled into a wall. Well, whoever's chest this was _felt_ like a wall.

I didn't have to look up. The smell and feel of this person automatically gave his identity away.

_Stefan…_

I tried pulling away to no avail.

"You of all people should know by now that trying to get away from a vampire will never end successfully," he said in an emotionless tone. The tone of his voice made me want to break the most. It used to hold so much compassion and empathy, and now—nothing.

"Let go of me, Stefan," I did my best to sound as much angry as I was hurt.

"Why?" he asked. "Are you going to stake me again?"

I didn't answer. Instead, I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and stood perfectly still. I needed to call Damon.

"Hey, maybe you'll play it up again and surprise me with a vervain bomb."

_Shut up, shut up, shut up, SHUT UP!_

After near thirty seconds of his babbling, I finally spoke.

"I guess I've learned my first lesson tonight," I started. "Never leave just one person, supernatural or not, alone with an emotionless Stefan the Ripper." I locked my doors with the little button on my keychain and pretended that what I had said wasn't the most important piece of information I had so far.

"True," he began. "Of course, since you only left Damon to handle me, all I had to do was throw him in the cellar with that freezer full of old, bagged blood. It's much better if it's fresh."

"You would know," I mumbled quietly, but I knew he could hear me nonetheless.

"And now that you've become Little Miss Vampire Hunter in Training," Stefan started again, "I have to keep a very close watch on you." He picked me up and started running towards the door, but stopped at the threshold.

"Of course," he mumbled. "Jenna's dead and ownership has rolled over to somebody else. Oh well, I guess we can't stay here." He started running again.

I tried to fight against him, but it didn't help. We ended up in a foreclosed home somewhere across town, and it was still completely furnished.

"We'll stay here tonight," he said, entering the home and locking the door behind us.

"Put me _down_, Stefan!" I yelled. Like I'd pictured, though, he didn't.

"Now now, Elena," he said. "There's no need to throw a hissy fit from lethargy. I'm just putting you to bed." With that, he ran up the stairs and into a room with a bed twice my size. I didn't like it.

Stefan plopped me on the bed and pulled up a chair beside it, "Go to sleep now. I'll watch over you."

I glared at him with as much hatred as I could muster, but his expressionless face remained just that—expressionless.

I decided to give up fighting and go with it. It's not like he was going to hurt me. Klaus was making him protect me. Well, not me, but the precious "human blood bag". That bastard!

"Whatever," I said as I turned my back to him and laid down on the bed.

After what seemed like ages, but I'm sure measured around five minutes, he began to speak.

"Is there anything I can do to make this short stay more comfortable?" he asked, still emotionless.

I began to say "No, leave me alone" until an idea popped into my head.

"It'd be nice if you at least _acted_ like you still cared about something other than blood and fulfilling Klaus's needs."

It was meant to be a sarcastic remark, but he answered with an, "okay."

It made me turn on my side to face him, "Really?".

"Whatever will make you more comfortable," he said.

Well, it's not like I didn't want the old Stefan back—_my_ Stefan, but I wanted it to be genuine and not a façade, but I figured that I would take what I could get. Tonight, at least.

"Fine," I said, challenging him with my eyes. "Then let's play pretend. Let's go back to when you loved me, and we knew nothing about an original named Klaus, or any sort of moonstone—back to when I knew nothing about your ex-love, Katerina Petrova, and Damon was still a heartless demon that didn't much bother us except when bored and needing to see torment." I was on the verge of crying, but kept my challenging stare on my face.

"Won't it hurt when you wake up and find that I'm back to my original self?" he asked.

"I'm living by your morals tonight." I said. "You live for the moment and don't seem to care about the future consequences. Time to pretend, Stefan. Starting now."

Within a blink of an eye, Stefan was in my bed and holding me close while stroking my cheek and kissing my forehead.

He was definitely a good actor, but since I was going to regret this in the morning, a few more stabs in the gut wouldn't seem to make a difference. Besides, I wanted more, and I was being deprived for the whole summer.

I grabbed his face and full-on kissed him. I had missed him, and now I didn't want this night to end, but I was going to take full advantage while I still had it.

The kiss wasn't short. It lasted, and I was relieved when he had kissed me back, playing along.

The night went like that, until I fell asleep from exhaustion, but he stayed. He held me, and I absentmindedly curled the tips of his hair in the back around my fingers, playing with it.

Eventually, I heard the birds chirp into the early morning and the first bit of light streak the sky, and then Stefan did something that near broke my heart.

"I love you," he whispered into my ear, and then he kissed my hair.

Just as I was about to close my eyes and prepare to be back to hating him, my phone rang and I decided that there was no time to prepare. It was time to wake up.

I jumped out of the bed—out of Stefan's arms—and went to answer my phone. It had fallen onto the floor when I was being carried into the room. I realized that it was just a text from Caroline and decided to ignore it.

Just as I turned around, Stefan stood right behind me, and I looked up at him.

_Time for your acting skills to kick in, Elena, my mind said._

"Did that make your night more comfortable?" he asked with his emotionless face back.

"Whatever," I replied.

I began my journey down the stairs when I heard him give me a heartless chuckle. I turned back around to see why he was laughing, but he already answered that as he passed me going down the stairs.

"I guess I'm not the only one who can turn my emotions off," he mumbled just loud enough for me to hear.

With that, I was to go out in the world and pretend that this night had never happened.

Though that didn't mean I wouldn't remember it.

I smiled to myself as I passed Stefan at the threshold and began running back to the boarding house to let Damon out of his jail.

I didn't look at Stefan the whole way as he followed me, staying at least twenty feet away from me the whole way.

Sadly, the whole way back, I was thinking about those few short hours with him.

I silently cried as I ran.


	2. Review Suggestion Stefan's POV

"No Stefan," she said, looking dead into my eyes. "It makes me strong!"

On that last word I felt a stinging, ripping pain throughout my gut and I lost my breath as I went to my knees. I had looked up just in time to see her take off one of Ric's "stake bracelets" as I like to call them.

Elena had went outside and Ric had followed after one glance back at me.

Damon, however, just stared at me.

"Congratulations, Little Brother," he said. "You've managed to screw yourself oh-so-well that it has now become painful instead of pure pleasure.

My insides were too busy burning for me to comment on that statement. I could _not_ believe that she had just done that. That was twice that she had surprised me tonight. I had clearly underestimated Elena. Oh, that little vixen was totally deserving of my attention.

She had become so fearless this past summer. She was strong, fierce, and quite the little actress. She told the truth without revealing her whole heart, which added to the mystery of this…_new_ Elena, and to a vampire who's all about mystery, strength, and ferocity, she was being quite seductive.

I heard her car pull onto the road and drive off. Alaric's soon followed.

Oh my…

What was I thinking?

_Snap out of it, Stefan_, my mind said. _Humans are nothing but "refrigerators for blood"._

_Yes, but she's special_, the other part of my mind argued.

I was totally in for it. I was thinking of this all while pulling the double stake out of my midsection and rolling onto the floor in pain. Oh, she was good.

"Come on," Damon had said while attempting to pick me up. "Time for a little rehab. I put a bed in the dungeon. You should be comfortable."

"No," I groaned. The thought of being stuck in the dungeon and forced to be on bagged blood nearly made me sick and it somehow gave me this amazing super healing ability to where I got up from off the floor and threw Damon across the room. He landed into the wall beside his liquor table.

He got up and looked at the table, realizing that he only missed it by mere inches.

"Oh my, Brother," he said. "You're lucky. I would've had to kill you."

He surprised me by running across the room back at me and grabbing my by the throat, "I'd advise you not to do that again."

Oh, Damon¾always trying to be the badass. Sadly, he didn't realize my strength. He'd been on bagged blood for months now and my supply was fresh-from-the-maker. Thus, I was stronger.

"Big Brother," I said. "What you seem to have forgotten is that being the bad guy is much easier and better that trying to be the hero."

With that, I grabbed him by the throat and shoved the stakes into his gut just like Elena had done me.

Damon automatically lost his strength and I threw him down the hall, to the left, and into the dungeon room.

After him, I took the fridge his blood was in and threw it in there with him.

"You have a bed," I said through the bars after locking the door. "You should be comfortable." I had mimicked his words, and it felt oh-so-nice to throw them back in his face.

_Protect Elena…_Klaus's compulsive words popped up into my head again.

Finally, the urge to be away from her became too much to bear and I took off in a sprint to Elena's home.

When I finally got there, she was just getting out of her car.

"Elena…"

I grabbed her by the wrist. She could _not_ get away from me. I wouldn't allow it. I then pulled her into me and hugged her, glad for my sake that she was safe. Klaus would've killed me.

My emotions didn't surface, but in the back of my head, I could feel another part of me screaming, no, _clawing_ to try and surface, but it just wouldn't come. Elena was the key to this plot, and my emotions were forced down and unable to reach the conscious of my mind.

That didn't mean they didn't damn sure try.

Elena tried to pull away from me, but I wasn't releasing her anytime soon.

"You of all people should know by now that trying to get away from a vampire will never end successfully," I said. Was she really this stupid? No, because I didn't think of stupid people as seductive.

She was emotionally hurt.

"Let go of me, Stefan," she said in a tone that seemed full of fury and hatred but also hinted at something else.

"Why?" I goaded. "Are you going to stake me again?"

She didn't answer. Instead she took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and stood perfectly still. I'd give it to her, she was definitely handling stress well.

"Hey, maybe you'll play it up again and surprise me with a vervain bomb," I continued. It's a vampire's instinct to try and get a response from its prey.

_She's not your prey!_

It wasn't Klaus's words in my head that time. It was my own. Ugh, why did it always have to be a constant struggle with my subconscious feelings and my "no emotion" button whenever I was around her.

I knew why. I was compelled to turn them off. I didn't do it on my own free will, and thus they are fighting to find their way to the surface. They weren't truly off.

"Maybe you'd use some other new secret weapon. You know, since I'd be expecting the typical ones. You could try and beg me to let you go. It would add some sizzle to this situation-"

"I guess I've learned my first lesson tonight," she started. "Never leave just one person, supernatural or not, alone with an emotionless Stefan the Ripper."

So she became more educated on my past this former summer…interesting.

"True," he began. "Of course, since you only left Damon to handle me, all I had to do was throw him in the cellar with that freezer full of old, bagged blood. It's much better if it's fresh." This was just too much fun!

"You would know," she mumbled quietly. Didn't she know that I could hear her? Oh well.

"And now that you've become Little Miss Vampire Hunter in Training," I started again, "I have to keep a very close watch on you." I picked her up and started running towards the door, but stopped at the threshold. I couldn't go in.

"Of course," I mumbled. "Jenna's dead and ownership has rolled over to somebody else. Oh well, I guess we can't stay here." I started running again.

She tried to fight against me, but it didn't help. I took her to a foreclosed home somewhere across town¾one that was still completely furnished.

"We'll stay here tonight," I said as I locked the door behind us.

"Put me _down_, Stefan!" she yelled. She should know by now that I wasn't going to do that. She needed sleep. I didn't want her to talk anymore. It was giving me a headache.

_No, she doesn't annoy you! You love her!_

_SHUT UP!_

My feelings aren't usually easy to ignore, but Klaus definitely has some powerful compulsion.

"Now now, Elena," I said. "There's no need to throw a hissy fit from lethargy. I'm just putting you to bed." With that, I ran up the stairs and into a room with a bed twice her size. I liked it, at least. The expression on Elena's face said differently.

I dropped her on the bed and pulled up a chair beside it, "Go to sleep now. I'll watch over you."

She gave me the "glare of doom", but I didn't care. I just stared at her until she cooperated. I could always force her if she didn't listen.

Eventually she gave up and gave a careless, "whatever" and rolled on her side with her back to me.

I decided that I'd give her some time to calm down, but it seemed like ages before I spoke again.

"Is there anything I can do to make this short stay more comfortable?" I asked with a careless tone.

It seemed like she was about to say something but closed her mouth and tried again.

"It'd be nice if you at least _acted_ like you still cared about something other than blood and fulfilling Klaus's needs."

It was obvious that she was trying to be sarcastic, but I was just in that sort of mood tonight and called her bluff by answering with an, "okay."

She rolled back over to face me, her face trying to hide surprise. "Really?"

"Whatever will make you more comfortable," I said.

She seemed to be having a personal war with herself in her head and at that moment, I thought she was the most beautiful thing in the world.

_Stop it!_ My feelings busted through a little barricade in my mind and it gave me a literal headache in attempts to push them back down because I wasn't doing the pushing, but Klaus's compulsion was. I suddenly hoped that she denied her request.

She didn't.

"Fine," she said, challenging me with her eyes. "Then let's play pretend. Let's go back to when you loved me, and we knew nothing about an original named Klaus, or any sort of moonstone—back to when I knew nothing about your ex-love, Katerina Petrova, and Damon was still a heartless demon that didn't much bother us except when bored and needing to see torment."

My feelings busted down another mental barricade in my head and I suddenly remembered how good it felt back then when I was with her. I restrained from jumping into bed with her and asked her a question.

"Won't it hurt when you wake up and find that I'm back to my original self?"

It was true, once I was away from her for a bit, my feelings would be suffocated by compulsion again, and I would see her as nothing but delectable food.

Then she said something that made my heart jump in my chest.

"I'm living by your morals tonight." she said. "You live for the moment and don't seem to care about the future consequences. Time to pretend, Stefan. Starting now."

As soon as the last syllable escaped her lips, I flew into bed with her, scooped her up into my arms, and began kissing her forehead while stroking her cheek.

_What the hell?_

All of my feelings were out in the open. I could faintly feel the compulsion trying to regain control, but I just wasn't going to let it. Elena was _mine_ and I'd been so stupid to see her as food. The compulsion became slightly irritating, but I could handle it. My emotions were in control now and that slight irritation was the only thing stopping me from ripping her clothes off and violating her right here in this bed.

I could still see pain in Elena's eyes, and I wanted to kiss it away, but before I could kiss her, she grabbed my face and kissed me first.

Her lips, oh, they were so soft and luscious. I wanted to melt into them, but that damn irritation again stopped me from doing so.

I was so glad it wasn't a short kiss, though. It would last as long as she wanted it to last. I guaranteed it!

Eventually, after touching her and indulging on her sweet scent and wonderful lips, she began to grow tired, and I let her sleep. I didn't want it to end, because as soon as it stopped, the compulsion began to take over again and I suddenly wondered why I liked her so much.

When the sun began to rise, Elena awoke slightly and began to play with my hair like she used to, and that slight touch and interaction began to kill the compulsion again and I had to tell her something before it came back.

"I love you," I whispered into her ear and then I kissed her hair.

All too soon, I heard her phone ring that must've fallen out of her pocket and she got up to answer it. It felt like she was ripped from my arms and I immediately felt the compulsion strengthen and I no longer cared what she did as long as she wasn't hurt. I would be killed if she loses even the slightest ounce of blood unnaturally.

I got up to stand behind her and guide her out the door. I knew this house was going to be occupied by developers soon and we needed to be on our way, but my emotions that were now suffocated by my compulsion needed one question answered before they would quiet altogether.

"Did that make your night more comfortable?" I asked with my emotionless voice.

"Whatever," she replied.

_I NEED TO KNOW!_

She began making her way down the stairs and I couldn't help but chuckle as I passed her.

"I guess I'm not the only one who can turn my emotions off," I mumbled, just long enough for her to hear.

I was smiling by the time I opened the door for her to exit.

I was _never_ going to forget this night.

Elena took off in a sprint and I decided that it would be best to put some space in between us to give us time to think, but not too much space. I couldn't risk my neck if she got hurt.

However, since my question wasn't answered, that little sensation of feeling still screamed at me and tried fighting at the compulsion.

Most of me wanted to continue running like this, but that little feeling kept screaming at me to take her back to the house and desperately make love to her, as if life depended on it. In a way, it kind of did. My feelings depended on it…

…but we continued running.

I felt a tear run down my face from where my emotions got the best of me, and I let it run down my cheek.

I silently cried as I ran.


End file.
